Radagast the Brown

My other entry for GDUK this year was the Radagast which I showed as a WIP a few months ago. I was really pleased with the way he was turning out so decided to really try to create an interesting way of displaying the miniature.

With the competition in mind, I knew I had to keep him on his 25mm round 'appropriate gaming base' so I decided to put a lot of time and effort into his plinth. In theory the plinth is not part of judging the painting, but (in my opinion) it will most definitely help catch the judges eye - then I just had to hope that my painting would hold up to more intense scrutiny.

Being Radagast THE BROWN, there was always going to be a lot of brown - the trick was how to make that interesting. I used lots of different brown triads by Reaper and added the same shade colour (Coal Black by P3) and the same final highlight (Vallejo Ivory) to try and harmonize the various colours. The big point of interest for me in a model is always the face so with the 'lack' of colour in the rest of the model I wanted to make the face alive with colour (without being unrealistic) so I used a lot of Coal Black (which is really a very dark turquoise) and P3 Sanguine Base (a dark, desaturated red) to give him a bit of life.

The other POI I decided to go for was some freehand on his outer coat. Looking at stills from the movie his coat is almost like a tapestry with lots of patterns all over it so I went for a series of swirls and leaves and spirals to give a similar feel to it.

I think that's enough of a description and its time to show some photos...

And now for some closer shots of the man himself...

So... whaddayathink?

For some better photos, check out Putty & Paint - http://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/2946

(I think something may have changed on blogger and it seems to be butchering the quality of my photos)

I do have some other news about Radagast, and that is he helped me scoop my first Golden Demon!! I managed to win a gold in the Lord of the rings category!! Wooooooooooooohoooooooooo!!!!! Its been a long time and something I've wanted for absolutely ages... I am stoked!

Salamander complete!

I managed to finish the Salamander I've been working on in prime time for entering him into the Golden Demon competition at this years Games Day UK! (accidental?*)

I managed to get a finalist pin for him in what proved to be a really tricky category - it seemed like there were more entries in 40K single Figure as there are at many other painting competitions in total! I must admit, I was pleased with a finalist pin in this category as the quality was also very high.

I wanted to try and create a tiny 40mm vignette with this piece and hope that it tells a story to the viewer like a larger diorama might.

I have posted this guy up on CoolMiniOrNot and Putty & Paint if you are interested in voting :)
http://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/2945 (oddly I think these might be better pictures, although I am not sure why... maybe blogger has compressed these ones?)
http://www.coolminiornot.com/342264

On to the pictures...

*Nope!

Salamander... the magical disappearing post...

Somehow, this post seems to have reverted to an old draft version with no text or anything on it...!! These were the most recent images of my space marine on his base. I had written some decent blurb and linked to a pic where I had first created the base for other purposes... bah...! 

Here the posts is, re-instated... 

Radagast the Brown

I was not overly impressed by Radagast when I watched The Hobbit at the cinema - he was a little too ditsy, and not how I imagine one of the great wizards to behave. However, when I first saw the Radagast figure, I was immediately drawn to him and although he was Finecast, I also knew that I had to risk the air bubbles and paint one!

This is where I am so far...

The top image is probably the closest colour wise, but I am particularly happy with the way the back of his coat has turned out, especially when you realise how small he is.

Puppykicker's first 250 - Ravenwing

Here are some picturs of Phill's 250 points - some rather nice Ravenwing bikers

And some photos of our models together - 500pts of marines - not that many all things considered!

The next 250pt batch!

some initial pics of 250pt block #2

Grey Knight Terminators

and a Finecast (!) Jokaero

I've still got a lot of prep-work to do on these guys, this month is going to be a real challenge! Part of me wonders whether I should just buy Kaldor Draigo and paint only one mini this month :)

But I will give these guys a go and see what happens!

I managed to get some photos of my first 250 with Puppykickers 250 points of Ravenwing and will endeavour to get some photos up soon :)

Some better photos of the first 250

Right, I know its the second month of the challenge, but I just wanted to post a few more photos of the first 250 points. I've gone back to the blue-white gradient background and have been tinkering with my camera settings and am quite happy with the results.

So, what have we got?

A close-up of the Justicar

A pic of all the Grey Knights together

Inquisitor Avicenna in all his 30mm glory

The line-up showing all 6 of the models in this first 250 points

Coming up... photos of the next 250pts!

And we are done...

250pts of Grey Knights and their Inquisitor - painted in one month.

There are a few bits I could still tweak, but I am happy with how these have turned out!

I'll get some proper photos soon, but here they are for now.

3 hours left...

...and the tank is pretty much done!

Now back to the marines

Masking gone, and now some lunch!

Here it is with all the masking removed

Grey done...

I airbrushed the tank in a light coat of black paint and then worked on getting some grey shades and highlights in. I also added some extra black around the bottom of the areas of the tank.

That's the airbrush done now (I think) - time to now remove all the masking and the salt...!

Salt weathering... Done!

My tank is now a mottled silver with various areas masked off.

Salt added - next step, spraying it grey...

24 hours to go... Grey Knights final push!

So, it is the penultimate day of the month - crunch time for my tale of x gamers challenge.

What have I done?
-Painted 5 Grey Knights to 90% completion
-Painted and converted my Ordo Xenos Inquisitor 95% complete
-Built, prepped and done the initial silver coat on my Razorback

What more do I have left to do?
-Freehand loin cloth on Justicar
-Freehand details on shoulder heraldry
-Paint skullz(TM) on all 6 miniatures
-Hairspray and salt coat the Razorback
-Airbrush the grey on the Razorback and paint the rest of the details

And just 24 hours to do it... *gulp*

A quick Grey Knight update

These are the boys as they stand now. Ignore the blu-tac'd heads... I still have a bit of work to do on the inside of the neck area - needs some decent shading to make the helmets stand out. Stormbolters will be a dark red and I think the cowl of the Justicar needs some colour too.

This guy is the closest to completion. The first shot is the most accurate photo of the grey armour, but the blade is over exposed. The second photo is more over exposed on the armour, but the swords look pretty accurate. From a tabletop standard perspective, I am pretty chuffed with the way these have turned out

I think I need to knock back the yellow glow from the helmet looking at these photos. Its a bit more 'taxi light' orange in the flesh, but it might be a touch too much...

I still have a razorback and my Inquisitor to do before the end of the month... roll on Christmas break!


However, I do now have 5 bases almost ready for their occupants. I think I may need to add some skulls or maybe some spikes to add that GW/Chaotic flavour, but I am pretty happy with the way these have turned out. I also want to add some bolter shells etch strewn over the base.

Tale of Gamers - Grey Knights week 2

Second week down - more of the details on the Marines have been painted, and I have started work on the bases. There are two examples in the photos below - they are made from Super Sculpey, small (1:48) bricks by PK-Pro and a little bit of cork. They are not too tall and should be quick to paint effectively.

I do have a question though... the stormbolters - keep them black or paint them a dark red? The marine's eyes are going to be a dark green, weapon blades will me a silvery blue (NMM style but with a bright silver metallic paint as the base colour + blue ink to shade). I have also added a yellow light at the top of the helmets (not so sure about that, but I will get a proper photo up at some point and ask your opinion)

All the kit and caboodle that I was using on Sunday night to create the bases. (and of course, the boys themselves)

In other news, I played my first game of 40K in 8 years on Friday, at Warhammer World of all places. I was playing 1000pts of MrDee's Imperial Guard army with my ancient Crimson Fists and got my arse handed to me on a plate! Marine corpses lay everywhere... My Chaplain (and 10 Assault Marines) died in a huge ball of plasma, and my squads were all heavily depleted. However, in our scenario kill points were moot - it was all about capturing objectives and by the end of it, the score was 5:6 to me! Huzzah!

I completely fluked a win... but I enjoyed it. I definitely want to play a game with my Grey Knights when they are complete!

Tale of gamers - a little progress

I have progressed a little with my grey knights but don't have any 'proper' photos - just quick shots from my mobile phone, so I am going to keep them quite small. I wanted to do some gritty demon slaying marines rather than the shiny paragons of light that you normally see Grey Knights painted so decided to try a technique which I have seen armour modellers use before - the salt weathering technique.

First up, after undercoating the minis grey, I airbrushed a bright silver over all five of the models.

The next step, for which I don't have any photos, consisted of a thin layer of varnish (to protect the underlying metalwork) and once that was dry, I sprayed each part with hairspray and sprinkled over some salt. I then airbrushed the whole lot black. This will increase the definition of the weathering at the end of the process.

Once that has dried, its time to start painting the colours properly. So out came the greys and I airbrushed a gradient starting from dark grey and working up to a light grey at the top of the miniature. Here is a WIP shot of that process

Once the gradient was complete and the paint totally dry, I attacked the model with a toothbrush and some warm water. This knocks off and dissolves the salt added earlier and creates bare bits of metal (from stage 1) in a random pattern on the model. The following photos show the Justicar with most of the model glued together and few metallic bits painted, but it shows the battered armour quite well...

Each one of those dinks in the armour needs to be shaded and highlighted, and I need to add oil stains and other muck and grime. Hopefully this should contrast well with the tabard and shoulderpad heraldry which I have yet to paint... I am not 100% satisfied so far, but will try and finish these over the next couple of weeks and make up my mind if I want to use the technique on the rest of the army.

I do need to get some proper photos too!

Tale of Four Gamers... the beginning

Do you remember back in the day, White Dwarf ran a series of articles which basically amounted to painting a certain amount of models a month to slowly build up an army? It was called the "Tale of Four Gamers", and is a really great challenge for people like Toosh and I who are painters rather than gamers as we tend to spend a great deal of time painting individual figures, but jealously look at what wargamers can produce...

With that in mind, a group of us are going to do something similar. We have each picked our armies and started on the first batch of minis. There are few rules - must be at least 250pts a month (although MrDee as a seasoned army painting veteran is likely to do at least twice that... the bastard), and there are two wild cards that can be played for those tricky times over the next 6(ish) months -

1. the 250 points can be postponed for 1 month, meaning that you need to do at least 500pts in the following month and 
2. a free month - no models required.

250 pts isnt a lot, but the intent is to encourage T and I to paint more quickly and freely and we are being helped along the way by mrDee and Puppykicker who both play 40K and paint armies already. We may even get a couple of games in as we progress...!

The army choices are as follows:

Me: Grey Knights
Toosh: Dark Eldar
mrDee: Blood Angels
Puppykicker: Ravenwing

My first 250pts
1 x Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (=][= Avicenna lives again!)
5 x Grey Knights in Power Armour
1 x Razorback

Time for some photos.... firstly my Inquisitor - based on an old metal Commissar Yarrick model with the arms from the Inquisitorial walking throne thing:

This is a pic of 28mm Avicenna next to my 54mm Inquisitor Avicenna which was the first mini I posted to Cool Mini or Not and the reason I ended up with that as a username! Now I am resurrecting the character for this 40K army... at 25 points (35 including his power sword) how could I resist (yes, the bionic eye has switched sides, but I don't care :oP)?

And my Grey Knights on sticks....

Onwards and upwards!